Antoinette Blackwell Childhood HomePhotograph by and courtesy of Catherine Frangenberg.

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Antoinette Louisa Brown Blackwell (1825-1921), minister

This farmhouse was the childhood home of Antoinette Louisa Brown Blackwell, the first formally appointed woman minister in the United States. Federal in style, it was in this home that young Antoinette first received exposure to the early spiritual and reformist guidance which influenced her life. Blackwell's father, Joseph Brown, immersed his family in the Protestant revivals that swept across central New York during the early 19th century. Blackwell was especially caught up in the fervor of the era, becoming a member and sometime speaker at the local Congregationalist church by age nine. Blackwell completed the theological course at Oberlin College in 1850-though her name would not appear on the graduation role until 1908-and was an itinerant preacher and lecturer until she received a permanent appointment as pastor of the Congregational church in South Butler, New York. This was the first recorded ordination of a woman anywhere in the United States. Blackwell continued to travel and lecture all over the Northeast, speaking on behalf of temperance, abolition and women's rights while touring with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. At age 95, she voted in the 1920 presidential election, one of the few early suffragists who survived long enough to participate in the first election opened to women voters.

The Antoinette Louisa Brown Blackwell Childhood Home is located in Henrietta, NY. The property is not open to the public.